Abstract

We consider the problem of streaming packetized media over
the Internet through an intermediate proxy server to a client,
in a rate-distortion optimized way. The proxy employs a hybrid
receiver/sender driven transmission scheme to communicate
with both the media server and the client. Computing the
optimal transmission policy for the proxy involves estimation
of the probability that a single packet will be communicated to
the client in error as a function of the expected redundancy (or
cost) used to communicate the packet. In this paper, we show
how to compute this error-cost function, and thereby optimize
the proxy's transmission policy.